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Three Issues in Law Department Talent Management

By Rees W. Morrison
September 22, 2003

A key element to in a successful law department is management of in-house legal talent. By the term 'talent management,' we mean all the methods available to general counsel for training, mentoring, coaching, motivating and directing in-house lawyers. This article, the first in a series of three, is based on consulting projects and research Hildebrandt International has conducted with a number of leading law departments. This article will describe the top three issues law departments have with talent management, and more importantly, will show some of the techniques now employed by general counsel for coping with them. The second part of the series will describe three progressive practices in the arena of talent management, and the series will close with a foray into three controversial practices. Taken together, the series will survey law department talent management ' its major issues, newer practices and difficult decisions.

The Graying of Law Departments

The first issue is the phenomenon we refer to as the 'graying' of law departments. For several years, many law departments have remained approximately the same size, with their incumbent lawyers becoming more senior, yet doing essentially the same work. Aging law departments bring with them a set of challenges for talent managers. Senior lawyers are often very good in a certain field of law, performing legal tasks the way and at about the same level as they have for years. There's a comfort zone that they've achieved in their level of expertise, and unless challenged to become more efficient or learn new areas, the benefits derived from increasing compensation based on years of service diminish over time. It's particularly difficult because these lawyers see their peers in private practice earning increasingly higher levels of compensation as they move into senior partnership positions. The answer of many law departments is training their lawyers, investing in technological tools that increase their productivity, and using outside counsel more for commodity work. Just because they're senior doesn't mean that they aren't subject to some of the same kinds of training that many of the junior lawyers need for career development.

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